I, for one, am sick and tired of everything everyone says anymore being prefaced by something about the economy. “Well, in this economy…” “With this current economic climate…” “Times are tough all around, and…” It’s like, thanks. For a minute there, I’d forgotten about the impending societal collapse. But I appreciate the reminder! Really!

Even so, there are times when it’s 100% appropriate to bring up the economy. Like right now. Because DVD sales have been dropping like a stone into an endless abyss since October, and right now is NOT the time to be jerking consumers around. If you don’t give them exactly what they want, they will curse your name and turn to illegal downloading (except in areas with metered internet, of course). But some companies just aren’t getting the message.

Fox’s recent release of the much-loved Slumdog Millionaire has been plagued with difficulties, due to a boneheaded policy and a stupid mix-up. For some reason, FOX decided it was a great idea to strip rental copies of all their special features, because, I don’t know, people who rent movies are scum? Their actual rationale is something about increasing DVD sales, but I honestly don’t see that happening at all. If I want to own a movie, I will buy the movie. If I want to rent a movie, I will rent the movie. A lack of special features is just going to make me irritated, and I imagine it will have the same effect on other consumers like me.

Anyway, something got screwed up and certain retail outlets, such as Amazon.com, have ended up with the rental copies for sale. It just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn’t it? Luckily, FOX still has a bit of a head on their shoulders and set up a hotline (1-888-223-4FOX) for those who’ve wrongly ended up with rental copies.

Not so much with Magnolia Pictures, which was responsible for screwing up the subtitles on the Let the Right One In DVDs. Lots of people were upset, and rightfully so, by the fact that much of the movie’s dialogue was completely lost in translation. In response to the public outcry, Magnolia re-released the DVD with the option of “theatrical subtitles.” Problem is, the DVDs look exactly the same and unless you’re physically holding the case, it’s impossible to tell which DVD you are buying.

And to add insult to injury, an internal memo betwen Magnolia and the Canadian distribution company reveals that they really don’t care.

Yes the bloggers are having a field day on this one. Normally they like to pick on the English Dub tracks, but in this case it’s the subtitles. Obviously online tend to get rowdy and bandwagon mentality without knowing all the details. The current subtitle track is not altering the context of the film at all, in fact it’s a more literal translation than any prior version of subtitles. It’s not a defective or faulty subtitle file. Just more literal and larger in size for the small screen. Both English and Spanish subtitle files were produced for this dvd release. Frankly it’s not all that uncommon to have the subs vary from prior releases, typically go unnoticed as subs are purely a translation of film dialogue.

A more literal translation. Really. That’s the excuse they’re using for this. Anyone who has ever studied a language realizes that literal translations often don’t mean anything close to what they are supposed to mean. It’s a very poor excuse, and their utter disdain for the situation is appalling.

It is possible for two phrases to say exactly the same thing in completely different and distinct ways. I think my favorite example of this is from Goethe’s Faust. At one point in the story, Dr. Faustus asks the devil if he, like God, is omniscient (all-knowing). In the translation I always knew, the devil responds, “omniscient? No. But well-informed.” I only recently became aware that there’s another translation knocking around somewhere, in which the devil’s line is something like “I may not be omniscient, however, I am aware of much.”

See what I mean? Even if the DVD subtitles were always correct, correct is only a tiny part of what makes a great translation that preserves the intent of the original. This is much worse than just leaving off special features: this is leaving off the movie.

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